Friday, September 26, 2008

This morning while Ashley and I were watching the morning news with our coffee, a commercial came on that caused GREAT excitement!

Perhaps this quote will give you a hint.

"Honeybees depend not only on physical contact with the colony, but also require its social companionship and support. Isolate a honey bee from her sisters and she will soon die."..The Queen Must Die: And Other Affairs of Bees and Men....

Now it's no secret that I have become a huge fan of our little winged friends, so when I saw that "The Secret Life of Bees" is coming to the theater, I gave a big whOOt!! I love this book so much that I have read it 3 times now and I know it is one of those books that I could read 3 times a year and never tire from it.

I love the personal interactions and how they tie into the quote that starts each new chapter...... and I love how each quote not only relates to the sisterhood of bees, but also mirrors our fiber sisterhood, which I hold so dear to my heart.

With a cast of Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys and Dakota Fanning, and a fabulous story line...........well, I can barely wait!

To celebrate the movie, I am going to break out the best birthday present I received this year, from a very dear friend ....you will love it! It is just so perfect. I'm also thinking that when the fair is over I just may have to have a contest. Hmmm........I'm thinking honey yarns, bee pins and whatever else buzzes into my head...heehee.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Almost a year ago, Anne started telling me about a design that she had been contemplating for some time, but could not seem to find the right yarn or pattern that would compliment the design.

As we chatted about it and I saw pictures of her first samples, I started seeing colors that I thought would compliment the design. Colors with rich depth to give life to the design. Whereas Anne is always seeing the patterns in things, I see the colors, which of course makes for a fun collaboration.

Anne released her pattern today and I have opened up the shop to accept pre~orders for the kits in the 2 different colorways (seen on Anne's blog). It's always fun to work with Anne and humbling to see what she does with my yarn!

In preparation for re-opening the shop in October with hopefully a new design and a real shopping cart, I have brought in some new yarns and rovings to try.

I am currently test knitting this beautiful blend of fingering weight merino and bamboo and I LOVE it. The bamboo has the shine of silk and the merino gives it just the right amount of softness and bounce.

Even though it is insanely busy here this week, I feel like a little kid who has been allowed to play in the toy store. It is such a treat to love what you do for work, isn't it?

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Spring was a time of swaggering declarations.Reaching autumn, one finds few absolutes.Life is mystery and ambiguity,Toward winter, that now seems agreeable and comfortable.Deng Ming~Dao

This upcoming week promises to be the week of insanity that it always is, this week before the Fryeburg Fair. Thankfully my family realizes the importance of this fair to me as a fiber artist and is willing to pitch in when needed and overlook the dust-bunnies that will undoubtedly grow until the fair comes to a close.

I have a few small knitting projects on the needles that I will share during the week, but mostly my time has been behind the pots, stirring that cauldron.

I thought you might like to see a few of the new colorways I have been playing with.Harmony~Mama Mia

Harmony~Mad About Saffron

Harmony~Chiquitita

Harmony~Indian Paintbrush

The best part about doing a big fair and needing a lot of stock to bring with me, is I get to really play in the dyepot. The colors that I like will get a name and will go on the new season's roster. The colors that either I know I can not consistently reproduce or did not come out as planned with go in my "One Hit Wonder" pile to be sold as a unique yarn. The fair also gives me an idea on a larger scale which colorways work, and which ones do not.

The weather here continues to be amazingly perfect. Cool, breezy, sunny autumn days perfect for drying wool. Fingers are crossed for the same kind of weather during fair week. I hope to see some of you there :)

Thursday, September 18, 2008

There are a lot of things that I love about this pattern, but there were a few things that just about made me crazy.

If you are thinking about making this sweater and have access to Ravelry, go take a look at Susan's notes first. Pretty much what bugged her bugged me, especially not having a good selvage edge on the lace to mattress stitch the side seams....but it's a free pattern and over all a wonderful one to knit!

Ashley and I had fun with these pictures. As you can see, my sunflowers are dressed in their Sunday best. :)

I love this picture of Ash pretending to take a shower underneath the flower....silly grrl!

Speaking of teachers.......Ash has decided to pursue a career in Education....so where as I'm no "teach", someday soon, Ashley will be! Yay Ash!

The days this week have just been outstanding! Warm sunny days, followed by cool, dry evenings. Perfection!

Garden gossip....Tonight we are expecting our first hard frost, so we covered up the herbs and veggies I wanted to save, along with my side flower gardens. The covered beds look like little ghosts and goblins and scared the crap out of Maggie when she just went out...snicker.

I am hoping that some of you more experienced gardeners out there can help me figure something out.

If you look at this bowl of tomatoes, you can see that on most of the tomatoes, where the stem is, the tomato is quite yellowish orange instead of red.

The tomatoes came off of the vines themselves and I have let them sit on the counter for more than a week, with no change in the color, even though the red part of the tomato seems very ripe. What's up with this?

Because I literally have scads of them in the kitchen, and not wanting them to be feasting material for the fruit flies that seem to appear from nowhere, I sliced off the seemingly unripe portion, tossed them in olive oil, salt and pepper and gave them a good roasting. I'm not a real lover of tomatoes, so I have no clue if they are good or bad. Ash says the ripe part tastes good, so I am guessing that these roasted tomatoes that I froze will be ok....at least I hope that they will.

I still have scads more however and they all look the same on the top. I have never grown Juliet's before, but the pictures I have seen, don't look like mine :(

As frustrated as I am with the tomatoes....I am thrilled with the carrots. Nothing beats a sweet, fresh, garden carrot.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

I have to say that I am almost afraid to think that I may just have knit a sweater that is actually going to fit! So far my track record for sweaters has not been so great. I tend to think that I am bigger than I am and my sweaters end up ginormous. This isn't saying that I am not bigger than i would like, but I am doing a lot right now to change that and so far so good :)

Ok...back to the sweater. I am finishing up with the cap on the last sleeve today and then it will be time for blocking, seaming and putting on the neck and front bands.

I can honestly say that I have not worked with cotton for an adult sweater, so I am not quite sure how one goes about blocking cotton.

I am hoping that those of you more experienced knitters in blog land will help me with this. Is it better to steam block as I know cotton grows when it is wet, or is it better to soak and block?

In addition to the knitting projects that I am finishing up, I have been dyeing like a crazy woman getting ready for the upcoming fair. Ken likes to tease me with his not so witty words of "eye of newt and stir the cauldron"...aggh. I keep threatening to put him to work if he doesn't knock it of!

The first batch of Splish Splash rovings I dyed up were done in a SW merino that I picked up a last fall from a well known vendor. I was told it was merino, but I am not quite sure that is the case. I decided to use this as my play roving for experimenting, so I guess it's ok. It's definitely SW something...LOL.

The newest batch of rovings is a SW BFL which I really am excited about. A little fly away to handle, but that fly away part translates into softness, which is nice.As anyone who works in the fiber business knows, an important part of the business end is making sure that a product is something that you yourself would buy.

This is the fun part.......I can actually justify sitting behind my wheel and spinning. No need to even feel guilty that the dust bunnies are multiplying like bunnies do :)

Friday, September 05, 2008

Ah Sunflower, weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the sun;
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller's journey is done;~William Blake

I know I haven't been very good with my Friday flowers, but I could not let this one last week pass without my favorite flower in the garden.

She is a gentle giant, ever steady...ever strong. Even with all of the wet conditions in New England this summer, the sunflower sisters have surrounded my garden in all their amazing glory.

Each year I usually plant a row of sunflowers in my garden, but this year I decided to surround the entire garden with their sunny faces.

Up until this past week, I have not enjoyed my visits to the garden at. all. It's hard to watch one's hard work be destroyed by weather and bugs....but this week has been such a treat. A reward for patience and perseverance, I guess.

As the week has progressed, I have found that I have really looked forward to my morning walk in the garden.

The grrls are full of buzzing bees and seeing all the different sizes and shapes of sunny faces looking back at me is truly amazing. I now understand why people plant entire fields of sunflowers.

To honor the lovely ladies of the garden, one of my new fall colorways will be called Sunflower :).

I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend in your corner of the world!

Thursday, September 04, 2008

What can I say about Spunky Electic roving that has not already been said? Fabulous, fabulous stuff!

Last month I showed you the lovely braid of roving that I picked up at the Fiber Revival where Amy was vending. The braid didn't sit for long here though, as those colors were just yammering at me to be spun.

With a bit of free time one night, I sat down and predrafted out the braid in to these soft little balls.

Are these colors not stunning? Amy truly is a master at putting some of the most scrumptious colorways together!

Once the balls were ready to be spun, I pulled sweet Moriah from her prominent spot in my living room and started to spin. Sadly I have not had much time for spinning over the summer, and I will admit that I am a bit rusty.

Watching the colors load up onto the bobbin is always so inspiring. As I spin, I sit and contemplate.....do I chain ply to keep the colors separate, or do I 2 ply and get a nice blend of all of the colors? Will I knit a scarf or a hat? Will I keep it or gift it...and the wheel goes round and round :)

Remember this strange little toy? It is the knit and spin that I also purchased at the fiber revival. It is TOO cool!

Frequently I will forget to weigh out my roving into 2 equal amounts in my excitement to start spinning, so I will end up having to ply off of a center-wound ball. The only problem with that is the ball will collapse on itself as you get close to the end, which can be a royal PIA.

This little nifty tool will hold the center of the ball and even better it rotates on the base as you ply. It works like a charm!

As you can see, I decided to 2 ply the yarn. Even though I think it would have looked prettier in the skein had I chainplied it, I know I will love the way the 2 ply knits up even more :).

Monday, September 01, 2008

Progress is being made on my "end of summer" projects. The large bag portion of McKayla's backpack will be finished tonight.....leaving only the straps, assembly and finally felting it.

Can I tell you a secret.....I HATED every minute of working this flower. Now, had I done some reading on Intarsia, I would have realized that I made this flower MUCH harder than it really needed to be....aggh!

I carried the main colored yarn across the back of the flower as though I were doing fair isle knitting. What I should have done was work the flower back and forth in the purple and work each side of the flower with 2 separate balls or bobbins in the main color. It makes complete sense!

Having never done any real intarsia, nor reading anything about it in the past, it wasn't until I read Beth's comments mentioning Intarsia that I did some research on it. As I said.....I made this flower much harder than it really needed to be....sigh.

I am going to have to try another project soon and use the Intarsia method. I think I know exactly what I will try :). I will share soon....

" Hey Teach" is moving along, but slower now that I have been focusing on getting McKayla's bag ready for the end of this week and school.

I have also been absolutely smitten with dyeing up these rovings. I swear, they are like potato chips...you can't just do one.

When I get my website updated, I will continue to offer my saturated Luxury rovings, but I will be doing all of my superwash rovings in this Splish Splash fashion. I am working on spinning up some to make sure that they look as nice in the finished yarn as they do in the roving.

So as summer is winding down and school is starting tomorrow, I am looking forward to a few free hours each week to work on some new things...